Knocking On Heaven's Door
by Gaby Black
Summary: Oneshot. Written for the Planetary Prose challenge. It is 1979 and Sirius learns about his father's death. "Father is dead." Sirius Black stared at the words uncomprehendingly for a moment. He recognized the childish, slightly trembling handwriting.


**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter and his world do not belong to me but to JK Rowling. The lyrics at the beginning were written by Bob Dylan; I do not own them. I'm not making any money out of this.

**Author's notes:** This was written for two challenges. First for the Planetary Prose challenge on the HPFC forums. Prompts were: father, sky, over-bearing, sideways, begin. Secondly, for the Fandom Challenge on the Reviews Lounge. The fact that I chose to turn upside down is: _most Order members were Aurors._

A special mention to **lyin'** who writes awesome First Order fics, and to whom I stole the nickname Mack.

* * *

**Knocking On Heaven's Door**

* * *

_It's gettin__g dark, too dark to see_

_I feel I'm knocking on heaven's door_

_Mama, put my guns in the ground_

_I can't shoot them anymore_

_That long black cloud is coming down_

_Feels like I'm knocking on heaven's door_

* * *

_Father is dead._

Sirius Black stared at the words uncomprehendingly for a moment. He recognized the childish, slightly trembling handwriting, though he had not seen it for several years. At last, his brain seemed to register the words. He barely noticed the great black owl flying away, having delivered his doomed message.

Orion Black was dead.

Sirius's first, incongruous thought was that his father would not live to be fifty.

"Shame, Father, only two weeks and you could have reached fifty," Sirius said, chuckling humourlessly. "You've been a permanent failure, I'm afraid."

Then his laughter died and Sirius read the words over and over again.

Strangely enough, he did not hate his father - his feelings for him were more of a condescending kind. Sirius believed that his father had simply lacked the intelligence and independence not to agree with Voldemort's idea. His only goal had been to serve The Name, and The Honour of the Black family. His mother was much worse - had always been. Sirius couldn't help but think, sometimes, that if the situation had been different, perhaps Orion and he could have gotten along a bit better (or a little less worse, depending on how you saw things). He knew that there were no such what-ifs as far as his mother was concerned.

_Father is dead._

Nothing else. Nothing about how and when he had died. But it sure was from Regulus.

Sirius's first reaction was to go to Lily and James's. The Potters' great mansion had seemed empty ever since James's parents had died six months ago. But Lily and James lived there, and Sirius spent more time there than in his own flat.

"Sorry to disturb you," Sirius said when he had Flooed in the large living room's fireplace.

Lily and James looked up from their cups of tea.

"Not at all," James said. "What's wrong?"

Sirius gave him Regulus's note without a word. Then he felt the sudden urge to get out, which was stupid, really, because he had come to _see_ James and Lily, and now it seemed that he could not bear to see their reactions. He stormed out of the house into the backyard and stood with his back turned to the mansion. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for James. It started raining. After a while he heard footsteps behind him.

"James…" Sirius whispered.

For the important, serious talks, most of the time the Marauders nicknames vanished.

"D'you know what I feel like? I feel like _fighting_."

"I don't think killing anyone –" James started.

Sirius shook his head. "I don't want to kill someone, I want to..."

Sirius trailed off and looked away. His hair was sticking to his face and neck now, but he still wanted to stand in the rain. He wanted to fight so that he could see Death threatening him directly, mocking him, and tickling his toes. He wanted to feel like he was on the verge of dying, to see his life come back to him in bittersweet, colourful flashbacks, to knock on heaven's door and see what it felt like.

"This is stupid," Sirius said firmly. "If I begin to go mad, just smack me right in the face."

How could he explain his feelings to James when he couldn't even explain them to himself? James nodded slowly and clapped Sirius on the back.

"If you ever want to talk about it, you know I'm here," James said.

That was the good thing about James, Sirius thought. James was always there…

"Thank you."

James nodded again, knowing this signalled the end of the conversation. The rain was falling harder now, but Sirius did not mind.

"We're leaving for the meeting in about ten minutes. Do you want to – I mean, if you don't want to go –"

"Don't be stupid," Sirius interrupted roughly. "Of course I'll go."

James gave a small smile and went back inside. Sirius took a deep breath and looked up at the darkening sky hopefully, as though the rain could wash away his deathly thoughts. It seemed to work, up to some point. But he could still remember when his father had smiled at him once; it had not always been like that.

"Sirius!" someone shouted from inside the house behind him. "Come inside, you crazy man!"

Sirius's bark-like laughter echoed in the backyard, even though no one but him could hear it. He turned to the house and, seeing Lily and James staring at him from behind a window, flashed them a smile and slowly made his way inside.

* * *

Sirius changed his clothes and a few minutes later they Apparated to the Secret Place where was to take place the Very Secret Meeting of the Order of the Phoenix. They were early, as always with James. When they arrived, the Prewett brothers were whispering to each other, looking unnaturally serious, and Frank and Alice were murmuring things in each other's ears. Sirius rolled his eyes and went directly to Marlene McKinnon.

"Hello, Mack."

Marlene, who was sitting at a table with her face in her hands, muttered something under her breath. She looked cross; somehow it made Sirius feel better.

"Had a bad day?" Sirius asked.

Marlene sighed. "Burnt my tongue with coffee. Lost my watch. Stepped on a dead bird."

Sirius made a face.

"Don't ask," Marlene said. "What about your day?"

"My father died."

Marlene looked at him sharply, her blue eyes widening. "What?"

"You know I hate to repeat myself, Mack."

There was a short silence. Sirius still felt hollow, but he was good at pretending.

"You beat me," Marlene said, smiling sadly.

Sirius shrugged and tried to grin back at her. "At least I didn't step on any dead animals."

Marlene rolled her eyes. "Don't try so hard being the tough guy, Sirius. Showing emotion once in a while isn't a crime, you know."

"And _you_'re telling me this, you of all people," Sirius said. "You can't fool me, McKinnon."

Shaking his head, Sirius turned to the rest of the people in the room. James and Lily were with Fabian and Gideon. Frank and Alice, who had been talking in a corner, joined them.

"His father just died," James said quietly, to those who had been talking and had not heard Sirius.

There was a long, awkward silence, during which Sirius stared stubbornly at the wall in front of him.

"Ah," Gideon finally said, looking slightly relieved. "You know it, then."

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked.

"I'm sorry," Fabian said curtly, out of habit.

Sirius briefly wondered how many times Fabian had said these words in his twenty-three years of life, as he worked for the Magical Enforcement Squad in the Ministry. Probably too many times.

"Yeah, whatever," Sirius snorted, walking towards the twins. "You didn't answer my question."

"Well, we knew about your father's death already –" Fabian started.

"But we figured it would be better if someone else told you, considering – you know – we're not the best of mates and all," Gideon finished, with a quick peek at Marlene.

"How and when did you learn?" Sirius asked uncharacteristically calmly.

"We were patrolling this morning," Fabian said.

"And at about ten o'clock we accidentally stumbled upon your dear Daddy – a charming man, I must admit –"

"Gideon!" Lily protested.

Gideon was decent enough to look sheepish. Fabian glanced sideways at him and took over.

"We'd been told there had been unlawful magical activity somewhere in Knockturn Alley –"

"Truism," Gideon muttered.

"So we went there and your father was there. Didn't see any Death Eaters or anything so we pointed our wands at him and said 'Magical Law Enforcement Squad, hands up!', while Gid made his way towards him to take his wand from his pocket."

"But then he stupidly started protesting and moving around," Gideon said.

"And suddenly, before we could Stupefy him, four Death Eaters came up – we think it was the Lestranges, Malfoy and that brother of yours –"

"Regulus was there?"

Sirius felt like his heart had dropped to the bottom of his stomach. Lily put her hand on his arm.

"Yes; stood petrified as soon as he saw his father, though. The others did most of the fighting, fortunately, as there was only Gid and dear old Benjy and me. Malfoy hit Benjy but he'll be all right."

"Where are Aurors when you need them?" Sirius muttered.

"I really wish we had more Aurors in the Order," James said. "Only one is not enough, even if Mad-Eye probably counts for ten."

James turned to Fabian so that he could resume talking.

"And… Lestrange… it was just when they Apparated, he meant to hit me with the Killing Curse but… your father, who was standing in the middle of us all, was in the way. I'm sorry."

"Accidents happen, and there's no need to be sorry," Sirius said. "He was a bit of a bastard, anyway."

Gideon smirked. "Like father, like son."

Again, Lily glared reprovingly at him, but Sirius did not mind. He still preferred this to the concerned looks and the questions about his feelings. He went to the window and they all started talking about their next mission, understanding that he needed to be alone for some time. He felt so many different emotions at the same time that he thought his head was going to explode. Which was why he still felt like fighting. If he were fighting for his life then he could forget about everything else.

There was anger. Anger at his father for being such a fool, hanging around in Knockturn Alley and letting all this – this _war_ – happen, for the pride of the Black house, and not realizing what Voldemort and his followers were ready to do. Anger at his brother for letting it happen and for having had the nerve to owl him. _Father is dead. Ha, you practically killed him. _

There was the over-bearing urge to fight, to _do_ something, right now.

There was a twisted kind of satisfaction at the irony of life. His father had paid the price of believing Voldemort's ideas were right by being killed by one his followers' spell.

There was the faintest hint of regret. Regret that he had never really had a proper relationship with his father and that all chances were now gone.

A storm was raging outside. He thought of the ultimate betrayal of his brother.

"I hope you're happy now, Regulus," Sirius muttered bitterly.

He felt so tired, suddenly, and wondered if, when his time would come and his eyes would close forever, he would be blindingly forgiving to everyone. He decided he would not. Some things could not be forgiven by Sirius Black.

* * *

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